


Caesura

by UrbanHymnal



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, End of the World, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2704298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrbanHymnal/pseuds/UrbanHymnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment between breaths. A silence between the two of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caesura

“Last cat died. You hear ‘bout that?”

“Good riddance. Hated those things. Leaving hair all over the place. Nothing but a nuisance.”

“Really? Loved my aunt’s. Cute little orange thing, would curl right up next to you, happy as can be.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s how they start—”

Sherlock pushed past the two men blocking the sidewalk and tugged his hood down further to protect his eyes. 

“Oi! Watch it!”

He ignored the man’s shout of protest and kept walking. How London could be so empty, yet still full of idiots, he could never fathom. Days like these he missed the old coat. Nothing like an upturned collar to disarm people, to distract. The barrier of fabric had the ability to send off the message of ‘don’t approach’ without him saying a word. Now, though, everyone had pulled up collars and deep hoods to keep out the ash. It did little good, but then so much of humanity was about half-hearted attempts these days.

He coughed hard inside his mask. The rubber and plastic, pulled tight to keep the toxic air from creeping into his lungs, bit into his skin. Another pointless gesture, but John insisted. His hands twitched at his side, eager to rub at the ache in his chest that never left. It pressed against his lungs, desperate to tear at the already weakened tissue and leave him a sweating, shaking mess. 

He ignored the impulse to hack wetly into his mask and kept walking. Baker Street, lit by one lone streetlamp, rose grey and shadowed in front of him. The light flickered, doing little to illuminate the street. Cars, engines clogged, sat forgotten, like broken toys left in the wake of an angry child. The lumps of chrome and steel were barely visible under the blanket of grey ash and soot. Those that could have left London had long since done so, fleeing in droves in their tightly packed vehicles. Everyone else remained, knowing anywhere they fled would be just the same as London: cold, dark, dying.

He shoved his shoulder against 221b’s door, cursing quietly at the way it stuck. On the other side of the door, he heard the thump of John coming down the stairs.

“Hold on, hold on. I’ve got it. You’re just making it worse bashing on it like that.” The doorknob rattled and the door opened with a loud creak. John stepped out of his way just long enough for him to get through the door then slammed the door shut again. He left John to sort the locks and sweep up the ash that had collected in the entryway.

The flat was only a few scant degrees warmer than outside, but Sherlock still tore off his hood and ran his fingers through his hair. He never felt clean these days. He sweated horribly even as he froze and the day’s filth clinged to his skin and hair. The mask came next and he wiped ineffectively at the sore skin around his mouth, rubbed raw by constant contact.

A cough clawed up his chest and ripped through his throat. The sharp, wet pain bent him double as he gasped for air. When he finished, he leant against the wall to keep from falling. John stood silently just out of reach, mouth tucked into a frown. Sherlock always hated these moments, hated his transport more than he ever had before. It wasn’t the weakening lining of his lungs or the way his phlegm was now darkened with grey and red that troubled him. No, it was the look that crossed John’s face in the seconds that followed one of his coughing fits.

It was helplessness and it sat wrong and horrible on John’s face.

“Better let me have a listen.” John stepped into the kitchen to retrieve his bag.

Sherlock took a slow, careful breath, wary of setting off another fit. When the urge passed, he followed John and sat heavily into a chair at the table. “Doesn’t matter.”

John winced at the harsh, twisted croak of Sherlock’s voice. “Yeah, it does. It matters to me.” The stethoscope was cold even through the layer of Sherlock’s shirt, but it felt welcoming against his overheated skin.

He sat still as John moved it back and forth, waiting for the charade to be over with. “Well?”

John turned away for a moment, hands occupied with packing up his bag. “No worse than mine.” He offered a flat smile over his shoulder. “How’d it go?”

“The same as it went the day before and the day before. Morons.” Sherlock rested his elbows on the table and pressed his hands over his face.

“Doubt that. Here, drink this.” John tugged at Sherlock’s wrist until Sherlock pulled his hands away from his face and pressed a half-drunk bottle of water into his hands. “Anyway, all those geniuses packed into one room. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Christ, it’ll probably be you showing them all up and then your head will be even bigger than before. All those scientists and a consulting detective shows them up.” His laugh fluttered for a moment, weak and fragile, before dying in the space between them.

“John—”

“Don’t. Just. Don’t.” He slapped his hands on the table and stood. “Just sit there and drink your water.”

No point in arguing when John was like this. The water sat stale against Sherlock’s tongue, but soothed his throat nonetheless. He had finished his own ration of water this morning and he wondered if this water was soothing because he needed it or if it was soothing because it was John’s, given without a second thought.

Once finished, he joined John at the window. “Former consulting detective. The world doesn’t really need detectives now.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t really need doctors either.” John rested his forehead against the glass. In the gloom, his face was a palette of grey, outlined in sorrow.

“I still do.”

“You can’t say things like that. Not when you don’t—.” John grimaced and rolled his forehead back and forth across the window pane, attempting to banish the lines that marred his forehead. “It’s funny. If things had been different, if everything hadn’t gone to hell, I think I could have…”

“What?”

“Loved you.”

Sherlock studied the wrinkles around John’s mouth, the dip of his cheeks from too many skipped meals, meals given over to Sherlock to keep his mind sharp, to keep him going. This was yet another thing they never talked about. Sherlock had taught John how to dance well and now their days were spent dancing around each other and a thousand missed conversations. “And now?"

John opened his eyes. He stared off into the distance, his eyes tracking the fall of ash, a cruel inversion of the eagerness a child showed at the first sign of flurries. “And now…”

The streetlamp finally gave up its long fought battle. In its last moments, all that could be seen was the flurry of grey outlining the skeleton of London. True darkness fell across the street and spilled into their flat.


End file.
